I started making my own nut butters in 2005, when I had been on the BTD for about 2 years. I began with almond butter and pumpkin seed butter. I would grind the seeds in my food processor. They would first become a fine powder, and then become a thick sticky ball. In order to have a smooth nut butter that I could use for a veggie dip or spread on a cracker, I had to drizzle in a little light olive oil.

When DD and I began making homemade peanut butter, she didn't want to add the extra oil. When the peanuts reached the sticky ball stage, she said wait. Let's see what happens. I had just about given up when suddenly the ball moved and became delightfully smooth peanut better. It was almost miraculous.

I tried more patience on almond butter and pumpkin seed butter, but no amount of extra processing ever led to a smooth nut butter. I gave up and for all these years have added a little oil when I made nut butter.

Our Strong Son has radically changed his diet in the past two years. First, his blood pressure went up and he began to feel heart palpitations. SS has never been over weight. He is tall and thin. He has always played sports, and run. His doctor sent him to a cardiologist, and he checked out fine. Both my husband and my husband's father are tall and thin. Both developed high blood pressure at a young age. The cardiologist thinks it is inherited and has him on a low dose of blood pressure medication.

SS wanted to do everything he could to get his blood pressure downnaturally. Though he had always eaten relatively healthy for a single young man, he began to seriously watch his salt and fat intake.

At the same time he began training for triathlons. He became interested in nutrition websites related to long distance running, swimming and cycling. Not everything he has learned from his heart and triathlon research is identical to the BTD, but it is remarkably close. I have chosen to be completely supportive, rather than harping on the differences.

He had never eaten margarine, and he stopped eating butter. He eats olive oil, but he needs a lot of calories when he is training. He read about putting almond butter on sweet potatoes instead of butter. He bought almond butter at the store, and loved the taste, but complained about the cost.

That sent me back to the kitchen to give homemade almond butter another try. Walnuts are beneficial for Type Os and have a higher fat content than almonds. What would happen if I added walnuts to the almonds? It worked. The almonds got to the sticky ball stage, and I began adding walnuts. When the ball began to move, I waited and added more walnuts. Suddenly, just like with the peanut butter there was creamy smooth almond walnut butter with no added oil.

I gave SS the first jar for his birthday. The next night I had a text that it was delicious on a sweet potato.

My family has hit some hard times lately. My primary source of income for years has been SSI, but I've also gotten child support and SNAP benefits (food stamps) for all 4 of us. I haven’t gotten child support in a while because my ex, Ben, has been unemployed, but there’s always been an expectation that he’d repay me when he got back on his feet. Last year, when Leah graduated from high school, we stopped getting SNAP benefits for her, but it was OK because she was out of the house anyway.

Everything changed this fall. SNAP benefits dropped again when Hannah finished high school. Ben got cancer, and is declining rapidly. He won’t be “getting back on his feet” and he’ll never repay me what he owes in back child support. Leah was planning to spend another year in Israel, coming home for Jack’s Bar Mitzvah and going right back. Now she’s home to stay. She is in school full time and working about 6 hours a week, but she still doesn't qualify for SNAP benefits. She has begun to buy some groceries for the family with her own money.

Leah was a big help in locating Food Not Bombs, an organization that distributes free food that stores were going to throw away. I also contacted the local food pantry and started getting food from them twice a month. I no longer need to “borrow” money from my Mom to buy food. I've “borrowed” thousand of dollars from her, with the hope of repaying her when Ben repaid me, but now we both know I’ll never be able to pay that back. She’s OK with this, in that she isn't about to let us starve, but she also can’t really afford to keep doing it.

It’s empowering to realize that I have other resources; that I don’t have to keep “borrowing” money to feed my family. I have a bit of financial independence. But it’s also hard to lose control of the grocery choices. I always walk out of Food Not Bombs or the local food pantry with several bags of groceries, but I have limited choice in what those groceries are.

Right now, I’m well stocked on lentils, but I didn't have the option to bring home split peas or black beans instead- either of which would be more useful right now. I have freezers filled with gluten-free breads, even though I’d rather feed my family sprouted wheat or spelt bread instead. Food Not Bombs does have those occasionally, but the gluten-free breads are more prevalent. I currently have a lot of greens in my fridge, but most of them are on the cusp of spoiling. I’m encouraged to eat a lot of salads this week so they don’t go to waste, and that’s good. There have been weeks when I've been completely out of greens and ate a lot more grains instead. Grain foods keep better- I have uncooked rice in the pantry and breads in the freezer. And I seem to be inundated with fruit while I often have barely enough vegetables.

I've definitely allowed Blood Type Diet compliance to slide. I used to be very careful to not serve chicken to the Bs. Jack never had any obvious reactions to it, but I felt it was better for him to avoid it. Ben got sick to his stomach when he ate chicken, so that was incentive to keep it away from him! But now that Ben is too sick to visit, that incentive is gone. I've also stopped keeping Jack away from tomato sauce. It’s something we have in abundance, both homemade from “Food not Bombs” tomatoes, as well as canned sauce from the food pantry. When I make pizza for the kids’ dinner, I make individual pizzas. I used to make the ones for Jack without any tomato sauce, but I've given up on that. He doesn't eat enough fruits or vegetables anyway, and he prefers pizza with sauce.

I’m not in a position to turn down free peanut butter from the food pantry, and the kids will eat it. Leah likes it in smoothies and in hot beverages, and will sometimes prepare that for her siblings as well. It might even make sense to encourage the kids to have peanut butter on toasted gluten-free bagels, instead of the cream cheese I have to purchase.

It all just feels like the opposite of how I used to feed my kids. I no longer have the luxury to select spelt bread over gluten-free bread, because the gluten-free bread has a few questionable ingredients near the bottom. None of them are in 100% perfect health, and I wish I could encourage them to clean up their diets to see if that would help. But I honestly can’t afford to.

I’m doing what I can to keep my own diet as pure as possible, since it directly affects my energy and pain levels. I can avoid the “questionable” breads, and keep my overall grain intake down. I’m eating larger quantities of lentils than SWAMI suggests I should, and I’m not being as strict about avoiding additives such as sodium benzoate in bottled lemon juice or soy protein added to canned tuna. I simply can’t afford to always buy fresh lemons when they’re so much more expensive than the bottles, nor can I afford to turn down free cans of tuna from the food pantry.

I’m not about to actually go hungry, nor was that ever a risk. But I can’t afford to be as careful with our food choices as we used to be and as I’d like to be.

DD and I have not been as organized about looking for new recipes in the beginning of 2015 as we were at the end of 2014. But we are both still looking for quick, easy, and beneficial recipes for our often-picky eater husbands. Here is one recipe from DD for Broccoli Stuffed Chicken, and one recipe from me for Crock Pot Turkey & Broccoli

Picky Eater Stuffed Chicken Breast
This recipe reminds me of a product I used to buy before the BTD. It was a chicken breast stuffed with broccoli and cheese, then breaded. The family loved them. But between the cheese and the breading there were too many avoids for the BTD. I'm excited to give this version a try.

Crock Pot Turkey & Broccoli
The original recipe called for making a thick sauce out of chicken broth and corn starch. I skipped that step. Between the natural juices from the turkey and the added soy sauce and agave, I thought the crock pot made a nice thin sauce. It was just right to moisten the rice. I didn't need a thick sauce distracting from the flavorful turkey and broccoli.

Directions
1. Place turkey in a crock pot.
2. In a small bowl, combine, tamari sauce, agave, and garlic. Pour over beef.
3. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. After first hour, stir to make sure turkey slices don't stick together.
Serve over rice.

I went to the Farmer’s Market last week looking for kohlrabi. I asked at each stand, and had nearly given up, when a man in one of the booths said, I have one bunch left. He handed me very four small kohlrabi with the greens still attached. They were $3. That price for such tiny kohlrabi would not have been worth it, but I was intrigued by the greens.

When I got home I looked on the internet and learned that kohlrabi greens were edible. Tonight I gave them a try.

I cut off the thick stems and set them aside to feed to the deer. I cut the leaves and small stems into small pieces with my kitchen scissors. I cooked them in a little water and a little light olive oil. I seasoned them with a Mediterranean blend of rosemary, cumin, coriander, oregano, and cinnamon.

They were very good. I would definitely buy them again.

On that same trip to the Farmer’s Market. I bought sweet potatoes. I had read an article about grocery store sweet potatoes being sprayed with something to keep them from sprouting. I have no idea whether that article is true, but it made me cautious and I began peeling my sweet potatoes rather than eating the skins.

When I saw organic sweet potatoes, I stopped and looked. The price was $3 for a small sack – roughly twice the price of sweet potatoes in the grocery store. I bought a bag, wanting to see if I could discern a difference in the peels.

When I got them home, I realized that the skins were pitted and moldy. I had to peel the sweet potatoes before I cooked them. So the experiment was a waste. I paid twice the price, and still threw away the peelings. At least the deer were happy. They love sweet potato skins.

This is why I rarely buy organic. In theory it makes so much sense, but way too often I pay a high price and get home with poor quality produce

So hurrah for Farmer’s Market kohlrabi, but blah for Farmer’s Market sweet potatoes.

Every year since I moved to the Hill Country the city of New Braunfels has had a Love Your Heart luncheon on the first Friday in February. I have a couple of friends who always urge me to come, but my hiking club hikes on Friday mornings. I always laughed and said that it did my heart more good to hike than to sit at lunch.

This year the ladies in our Bible Study reserved a table. I decided to forgo the hike and attend the luncheon. There were two keynote speakers. One of them was a 25 year old (same age as DD) who had a virus attack her heart. Her story about getting a heart transplant underscored one of the themes of the banquet which was heart disease doesn't just strike the elderly.

Lunch included several Mexican dishes, all well prepared, and surprisingly good for Type Os. One of my friends joked with me saying, "Suzanne, this is your kind of meal."

There was a panel discussion by four local dietitians, one from the grocery store, two from hospitals and one from a medical clinic. I have low expectations for dietitians because they usually tout the government diet, but these ladies were excellent.

Here are some of the things I learned:

These dietitians were not anti red meat. There are 29 cuts of lean beef. They said that the two key words when looking for lean beef are loin and round.

Always remove the skin from chicken or turkey before cooking. That is where the fat is.

Quinoa is complete protein

Lack of Vitamin D increases heart disease risk. Vitamin D is more easily absorbed by people with light colored skin. Mushrooms are a good source of Vitamin D

A good rule of thumb is to make sure that more than half of your plate contains fruits and vegetables.

The dietitians talked about inflammation and heart disease, giving the best brief explanation of anti-oxidant that I've heard - "We need oxygen to live, but processes that burn oxygen in the body produce free oxygen radicals. Anti-oxidants bind the free radicals and escort them out of the body."

The last two hints were my favorites

Women are decision makers about food for our families, so it is important that we model good nutrition. Even if our children or husbands don't want to eat fruits and vegetables, you can show that fruits and vegetables are cool by eating them yourselves.

Let your children help in the kitchen. Children are more likely to eat food that they help cook.

After the panel the exhibits opened with displays from local health services. The firemen gave a demonstration of new CPR recommendations. Mouth to mouth is out. They taught us to draw a mental line from armpit to armpit and put the heel of one hand in the center of that line. Put you other hand over the first hand and push firm, fast pulses until help arrives. They said that it can be surprisingly exhausting, and that EMS will have machines to continue the pulses automatically.

The final event was a 5K walk/run on Saturday morning. Before the start, a local pastor prayed, "Creator God, we are here today to strengthen our physical hearts. Bless and protect us as we walk and run. Also remind us that even more important than the condition of our physical hearts is the condition of our spiritual hearts."

I've had a bit of a dry spell about blogging. Part of me thinks I should apologize; but another part of me doesn't want to bore you with words written without enthusiasm.

My business is usually quiet from mid-December through January, and that was the case this year. I worked diligently on some genealogy projects that have long been delayed. I have been publishing books for others. This year I hope to publish my father's WWII memoirs. I've been told that the market is saturated with memoirs of generals, but there is a growing demand for memories of the troops. I have a manuscript that will fill that niche.

I've been eating right - following the BTD faithfully. I've been exercising regularly and plan to run in another 5K race this weekend. I'm in good health. I just haven't been inspired to write...until today. And today I came up with four things I wanted to blog about. I'll pick one for now, and hopefully write about the others in coming days.

The more I watch DD raising BC according to the Blood Type Diet, the more I wish it had been available when I was raising my children. BC is now 10 1/2 months old. He is leaving baby food behind and is beginning to eat finger food. You know what he wants to eat? Legumes. That's right! He is attracted to Type A food. DD sent a picture today of him grinning as he ate a bowl of English peas and chopped chicken. She said he loves black eyed peas - not exactly what most parents feed their babies.

SIL wanted him to try banana, even though it is a Type A avoid. He offered BC a bite, and he pushed it away, not at all interested. Yet this same toddler will eat beets and carrots; pumpkin and avocado; celery and rutabaga.

DD has not given him wheat or corn, but he loves rice and oats. Because SIL has a sister with Crohn's disease, they will not give him leafy greens until he is a year old. DD is still nursing him, and plans to continue until his first birthday. We babysat for him a few weeks ago, and gave him rice milk to drink while his Mama was away.

He has just had his first cold, and it was a mild one. I told DD that by the time she was his age she had been on antibiotics more than once for ear infections. I believe cow's milk was the main culprit.

BC has been walking since he was 9 months old. He was very physically active in the womb, and he was a very active little baby. He learned to crawl, sit and pull up all at the same time. One week he was frustrated with creeping. The next week he was crawling to a table and cruising around it. It was amazing to watch. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas he let go of the table and walked by himself.

I don't think that the BTD has anything to do with his early walking. I think that is a reflection of his own personality. I would also be quick to add that walking early is not all good. He has not developed a sense of depth perception. If he is on one side of a room he may attempt to walk under a table to get to the other side, not realizing that he is too tall to fit.

There are advantages to a baby being content to creep and crawl until they have a better special sense. DD and SIL have done a thorough job of baby-proofing. BC will figure out depth perception, but until then they keep a close watch on him.

Today's news was full of controversy about vaccines. BC has had all of his shots, and I'm glad. I was also glad that his pediatrician was not one of the doctors that gave multiple shots at once, especially when he was tiny. I think the doctor used good sense to spread the shots out a little and let him recover from some before giving him more.

In his Live Right 4 Your Type, Dr. Peter D'Adamo expounds briefly upon the few standout social/emotional qualities he has noticed, among patients and those around him, while emphasizing that these are not hard and fast rules.

As a B, I find it noteworthy - and remarkably true - that the other three bloodtypes manifest interpersonal reactivity when stressed, where B might experience only fatigue, for instance, or, at "worst", some fleeting internal discouragement or disgust.

We Bs represent only about 10% of the world population. According to Dr. D'Adamo, we are remarkably [emphasis mine] able to relax ourselves and reduce our own stress. When maladapting, we simply "become extremely tired, depressed and lacking in motivation". We are "unconventional thinkers...easygoing...able to take upsets in stride, keep [our] priorities in perspective, and understand [our] limitations, [be] less driven", and we "make sure to find time to relax". Unique to our blood type's description among the four, there's nothing here about social acting-out, venting against others, obsessing about how to deal with others, feeling defensive or anxious, desperation to please or to appear right.

What Dr. D'Adamo doesn't deduce, or express, however, is that Bs, therefore, are utterly surrounded by those who manifest complex and incomprehensibly emotionally-driven behaviors in their relations with others and with us -- people who blow up, melt down, act out, "play games" -- and these explosions, dramas and maneuvers can baffle us because our behavior is not similarly subject to unfathomed depths and motives, not similarly oriented toward manipulation of the other person's reaction. (Note that the Japanese Bloodtype Personality theorists link B to careers in Psychiatry - a career that would be dangerous, perhaps, for non-Bs to pursue!)

Even during my days of close work with postpartum women, the B client's most intense emotionality was generally a relatively quiet/retreating non-anxious and non-agitated depression, with a markedly evanescent and easily-dissipated course, when treated with adequate education on the part of a patient, calm teacher. O and A women were far more likely to experience complex transferences with the counselor, for instance.

You other types: Be jealous, perhaps, of the easygoing B. And understand that we often truly have no idea what you are churning or ruminating about (if you expect us to) by identifying with it or with you. We do not identify with that state, but we (a tiny subset of society) are expected to accept that those around us can be subject to numerous hot-buttons, pet-peeves, expectations and demands that drive symbolic, convoluted reactions.

Many's the friend who has told me my insights are uncanny. One MD friend had unsuccessfully consulted 3 psychiatrists in 3 different cities, for a life-wracking problem she explained to me over a snack one day, which, in less than a quarter hour I, in her word, "nailed". Do all Bs have this honed a skill? Only if we're observant in the relevant sphere. But I think we, to some extent, do all tend to see the world and its, ahem, realities, from something of a distance.

Perhaps we frustrate you with our equanimity. Would it help to view our
"[discomfort] with rigid rules" (per Dr. D'Adamo) as a trait of a mysteriously alien Type amongst you, as if the Addams Family or the Solomon Family (from TV's Third Rock from the Sun) inhabited your world?

We're here, and we can actually help. Tap us and find out. Don't hate us. And if you decide to see a shrink, maybe you should choose a B!